Mourinho optimistic ahead of new campaign

Real Madrid boss Jose Mourinho is full of confidence after a strong pre-season and claims his side are playing better football than last term.

The Portuguese coach saw his team win all seven of their pre-season friendlies, only to lose narrowly to fierce rivals Barcelona in the two-legged Spanish Supercopa.

Real, second to Barca in each of the last three campaigns, will look to go one better this season and Mourinho knows his side cannot afford to slip up against Real Zaragoza in their league opener on Sunday.

“In the Spanish championship you can’t afford to drop points,” Mourinho told reporters on Saturday.

“On the first day of the season there can be surprises and I have warned my players that. They need to change the chip following this period when they didn’t know whether they would be playing or not (due to the players’ strike, which caused the first round of matches to be postponed).”

With agreement reached to end the players’ strike that lead to the postponement of last week’s opening round, Mourinho hopes his side can pick up where they left off in pre-season.

“I prefer to look at the positives from pre-season and I have been very pleased with my team – we are playing better than we did last season,” he said.

Nevertheless, the Portuguese expects a tough match on Sunday.

“Zaragoza are very organised. I don’t know if they will play with four or five defenders but they will be very hard to beat,” he said.

“They have a great atmosphere in their stadium and it will be difficult, as it was last year in our first game, against Mallorca.”